Sr. Rosa María Icaza, CCVI, 1925 - 2017

Born in Mexico City in 1925, she grew up in a home where not only was praying common, but little Rosa María actually lived among the “saints.”  During a turbulent decade of persecution against the Catholic Church in Mexico, a Sisters’ convent nearby had been forced to close, and the chapel and services, including Mass, were moved to the Icazas’ home and the chapel’s life-size statues were placed around the house. So, conversing with saints became routine for Rosa María. She remembers being asked to show her report card to the Blessed Mother before taking it to her parents. 

At 10 years old, Rosa María accompanied her little sister on her First Communion retreat, and it was there that she began to consider the consecrated life of a Sister for herself.  Later, while at the Incarnate Word Sisters’ Mexico City high school, that impulse to holiness developed: “I wanted to be close to Christ.  I wanted to give myself to him.  I wanted prayer to be very deep in my life, and also to do something for humankind.” 

She “saw that they [the Sisters] related with kindness and respect for one another,” and decided to join the Congregation. 

Subsequently, while at Incarnate Word College working on her B.A., the young Sister Rosa María was sent to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC to major in Spanish.  Even while completing her undergraduate degree, she began her master’s program. Her brilliance was recognized, and she was awarded the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Key.  

During her long academic career, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the Instituto Ibero Americano in Mexico City, Incarnate Word College, and the Mexican American Cultural Center. 

A sharp translator and interpreter, attentive to cultural sensitivities, she dedicated her life to building bridges of understanding among different peoples. Her ground-breaking work on Mexican and Mexican American cultural and religious traditions continues to be used in classrooms, cited by scholars, and used in some Church ceremonies. 

She spent the last thirty years of her teaching career in the pastoral training of sisters, priests, and lay ministers in the Mexican American Cultural Center.  

Fellow Sisters, colleagues, and students remember her as soft-spoken and gracious. She greeted everyone with a warm smile every day, treating everyone as a friend while imparting language gems, academic insights, and pastoral wisdom. 

Refusing extraordinary measures, she died in May 2017 in the same way she lived – quietly, with grace and courage.  Those who visited Sister Rosa María during her last days left convinced they would have a very special guardian angel accompanying them for the rest of their lives.